


Empty Vessel

by DrabblingSparks (ingenious_spark)



Series: Kingdom Hearts prompts & short fic [15]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isolation, Kindness, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, Past Abuse, Prompt Fic, Recovery, Running Away, abandoned places
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 04:50:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19986403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingenious_spark/pseuds/DrabblingSparks
Summary: Something that's empty is just a vessel that you can fill up with something else. For fifteen years Vanitas is filled up with hatred and bitterness and abuse.Then he runs away. In the silent emptiness of isolation, maybe he can learn to fill himself up with kindness, instead.





	Empty Vessel

**Author's Note:**

> From a list of prompts over on my tumblr, [@oopsbirdficced](http://oopsbirdficced.tumblr.com).
> 
> The prompts are all written by [@normal_horoscopes](http://normal_horoscopes.tumblr.com) over on tumblr! I encourage you to check them out!

_Capricorn: There used to be a church here. The old graveyard still stands. The lost and unclaimed always find a home here. This is a kind place._

He finds the place after he runs.

He runs when he’s fifteen. When someone tells him, in a soft whisper at the market, that he doesn’t have to stay. That fear is the only thing that keeps him there, with the old man.

So he runs, and his discovers this place. It’s falling down. The floorboards are no more, given way to soft, long grass. Soft enough to make a bed in. The framework of a building- a church, he thinks it might have been- still stands, stones stacked atop each other, but holes have been knocked in the walls. The roof is mostly intact, though, and keeps the rain off.

There’s a graveyard. For a while he stays away, before some nebulous feeling of guilt drives him out among the weathered, sometimes broken stones.

A lack of anything better to do makes him start cleaning the stones, once he’s comfortable among them. He clears away dead leaves and dirt with nothing but his hands, because there are no tools here. He has a bucket he thought to bring with him on his flight, to go with the goat he stole, so he walks down to the river and washes the tombstones, one or two a day. Soon he manages to make it three or four a day. He’s growing stronger.

It’s nice here. The echoing quiet makes him relax, day by day. He hadn’t realized how much tension he carried in the slope of his shoulders, in the curve of his spine. He stands straighter now.

Sometimes he wonders- since he has reinvented himself here, among the stones and the dead, should he take another name?

It was the old man who gave him his name, after all. The old man who decided he was was worthless. Who told him his name was nothing.

Vanitas- emptiness.

Then again. This place is empty, save for him. There’s wildlife, to be sure, otherwise he’d be starving, but there aren’t any other people. This is a kind place, even if it’s empty. A place for a lost creature like himself to discover what it means to live.

He decides to keep the name. A quiet, soothing kind of emptiness.

There’s a cat who prowls around. Another lost, unclaimed thing, like him. It sometimes lets Vanitas pet it. He likes the feel of its fur, though he knows it’s likely not as soft as it could be, given that it’s a feral creature. He can’t exactly give it a home, though. He’s as homeless as it is.

He clears and cleans stones, and uses charcoal from his fires to darken faded lettering. The old man never taught him to read, so he doesn’t know their names, but that’s fine. He can still talk to them. The broken stones present more of a problem. Vanitas doesn’t know how to repair rocks. He tries a couple of things- pastes, mostly, made from water and the plants he comes across. Not much holds. He contents himself with matching broken stones and placing them together.

Vanitas likes to think they would thank him, if they had voices, the graves he tends because he has nothing else to do. If he gives them kindness, he feels as though they would return it. It makes him feel like the whole area could become steeped in kindness.

Vanitas likes the thought. Kindness is a bit of a foreign concept in his life.

He slowly forgets the taste of fear.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
>   * Comments not in English
> 

> 
> LLF Comment Builder
> 
> This author replies to comments. It might take a few days/weeks depending on how busy I am, but you will receive a reply.
> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will respond only with an emoji! I will respond only because I have some compulsive tendencies towards replying to comments.


End file.
